dried up wishing well
by Broken Elsewhere
Summary: Because she is dying, and she knows this, and everything seems to have wound back to where it started.  - Reborn/Luce


**disclaimer: **I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn, nor do I want to.

**dedication: **To Charis, who's just as conceited as Reborn (possibly more so - not that that's a bad thing) who's ego I should not be fueling (but end up doing so anyway) and who's stuck by and put up with me all this time. Happy (late) birthday.

**note: **I don't particularly like KHR - little plot, too much nonsense, overdose of pretty boys, yaoi fangirls - but since this for a friend, I decided to make an exception. Otherwise, I would never write a fanfiction for it.  
><strong>note2: <strong>This is Reborn/Luce, and I'm going to imply quite a few things.  
><strong>note3: <strong>I haven't read much of the manga at all, and I've only seen a few anime episodes, so if anyone is OOC, please forgive me. I believe this would be Alternate Reality.

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Luce is not weak. There are people who expect her to be so, with the short life-span that she is cursed with, and she cannot help them understand why it is otherwise.

She is loving, and she knows this. Perhaps it has caused her more sadness than it has fixed. There is nothing she wants more than to live just a little longer, except she knows that nothing is forever.

Because in the mafia, nothing is forever, and she knows this.

Because Luce has watched what is to come for a long time now. She knew, even then, that one day, she would leave.

But until that time, if she could, she would not tell anyone of when she had foreseen it would happen.

Of course, secrets are not forever, and sometimes Luce thinks that perhaps Reborn knows more than he ever says. Or perhaps, and this she thinks Lal would agree on, feigning omniscience is a hobby of his.

Or perhaps she is just romanticizing things.

She is the foolish one, she supposes.

Because Luce loves Reborn, even now, even when she is about to die. She is so, so certain. She loved how his side-burns looked, how he smirked when he knew he was on to something, and the way his voice sounded early in the morning. This was, though, a very long time ago.

She has been there, so she knows what loving him is like. And she can't get him out of her head and it bothers her, because they are not teenagers anymore, and things have gotten so much more complicated.

She had traced the contours of her protruding stomach and thinks of how everything, _everything_ was wrong in the world and how she had not, _never _seen that this would happen. There is something horrible in Verde's knowing look, the sadness of Fon's eyes, the quiet suspicion that Lal and Colonnello and Viper have and even the naïve and yet not quite certainty that Skull shows her. Why then, did she not see it?

But it is better that way, in the end. What power it would be, to hold every possibility in your hand, of the roads to take and avoid. Anyone would crazy with so much knowing, of the exact twists and turns that life would take. Better then, to be uncertain.

Deep down, Luce knows that she has done bad things. And despite what everyone thinks, it is the truth. She is a bad person that has done bad things and she is not sorry.

Her baby is so beautiful, with her beautiful face that is not Luce's and that is not Luce's husband, and she hopes that her baby – dear Aria – will never, never know of what has transpired. Luce rocks Aria in her arms and tells herself _don't cry, don't cry, don't cry._

So, a day later, she pulls on her softest coat, buttons it to her throat, and stuffs her feet into her boots, laces them tight, and leaves her home. Her eyes (blue as the morning sky) are so tired, and she pulls her coat tighter to ward off the chill.

She is not wearing her hat, for once (he said she looked prettier this way), and she lets herself think of what has happened.

Things had started out simply, from the first time they met, to their first true conversation, to the first time they kissed, to – Luce blushes – to the day they became Acrobaleno, to now. It is December and it is cold, and she will sit in the park where her childhood started, and she will mourn.

Because she loves Reborn. She loves him so very much that it hurts, sometimes.

Luce tilts her head to the sky and knows that her time is coming. She can feel it in her bones. She wonders if it will be painful, passing on, or if she will be lucky, and perhaps her parents will come for her. Her parents would not make it difficult, because they love her, just as Luce loves Aria.

But her parents are dead, and they are not coming back, just like Luce is never coming back.

And once again, Luce knows this, and understands this, because she has cut her lifespan into pieces already, and death was coming.

Luce is not worried of what will come after, because she knows this is her fate, and death is as beautiful as life, albeit in a different sort of way. The life she has lived has been violent, and sad, but that does not mean she does not love it.

For death comes after light, like dark comes after light, and there is nothing to be afraid of. Everything comes full circle, and as she leans against the cool metal of the swings, she knows that she has gone back to where she started.

So when she dies, hopefully she will be near light, and maybe if she waits long enough, Reborn will meet her there in turn. But that will be in a long time, because Reborn is not so stupid as to die just yet, so Luce wonders if she will sit in the clouds for decades before he comes.

It is snowing now, she realizes.

Luce closes her eyes, and thinks of a night so very long ago, a happy blurred memory.

Reborn had taken her dancing. They hadn't had anything to drink; not really, they'd just…just danced. Soft and slow and sweet and everything that Luce had wanted them to be.

She could not remember the music, or the songs, for there had not been any they could call theirs, but Luce can remember Reborn's arms around her, and how she'd danced like she was floating and how they'd spent the whole night together.

Except nothing was forever.

She'll be dead soon, and they can't do that anymore.

There are things that Luce will regret, of her life and what she has done. What was it all she had hoped it would be? Had she dreamed that one day she would become head of her family long before her time? That one day she would marry a man that she did not love? Would she have believed that she would fall for someone so very wrong – and yet, utterly, _utterly_ right – for her? Had she dreamed that she would not get to hold her baby – his too, for anyone could see him in her – in her arms and sing for her and raise her as her own?

Funny, how life goes.

But Luce is not sorry. Their eyes will accuse her freely, but she is not sorry. Regretful of what she could not do, though. These are regrets she has had most of her life. Perhaps she will still have them in the next.

So she presses her tiny hands to her tiny heart and makes wishes.

And Luce wishes, wishes that her daughter, her sweet, sweet Aria, will know love, will know happiness, will not have to live with the guilt of the sweet smile of her husband's face as he pats her stomach.

Aria will be the family's leader, and she will grow up with nothing but the faded half-image of her mother, and Luce wishes she could see her Aria turn into a woman. At least Reborn will be there for her, in his own way, and she will watch her through him.

Luce wishes that she could live to see granddaughter, and she wishes that maybe; just maybe, things could have turned out differently.

She lies down on the ground, next to the swings, and simply stares up. Little flakes of white drift down onto her face, and she wished she had the strength to get up.

But she doesn't, because her time is coming closer and closer, and she can feel it speeding along towards her every minute; with every breath that catches just a little in her tiny chest.

A part of her sighs, and murmurs softly in regret. She shortened her lifespan so much, in exchange for the knowledge that she of the seven most powerful in the world. And she would pass this curse on to her daughter, and her daughter's daughter, and on and on and on, and maybe Luce is selfish for being glad that it will finally stop today for her.

But she is not sorry. This is fate, and fate is not what she can run against.

And, as Luce stares up at the sky, she knows that she is not weak, and that she never has been, and that she never will be.

She closes her eyes, and knows that the end is all upon her, that the circle has wound its way back to the start. People will say she died from freezing. She – and Reborn and everyone else – knows better.

She is dying because her body does not want to live anymore. She is dying because the Man with Checkered Hat decided it was her fate. She is dying because… Luce doesn't quite know any longer.

Her eyes, still closed, will never open again.

It is December 31st.

As life leaves her body, Luce finds this comforting, in a way, that she has lived the year out, at least. They will find her will, written carefully in a black fountain pen, and they will all see what she saw all along.

They will see that their infant bodies are only temporary grievances, and one day they will walk as adults in the world again, for she has not seen it. They will see that death does not separate, it merely prolongs, and they will know to bury her next to Reborn, when the time comes, and perhaps Aria as well.

They will learn that nothing is forever.

Because Luce is not weak, and she is loving, and she is not sorry, and her final thought amongst the living is that she knows this, and if Reborn knew it too, then it would be enough for her.

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**note4: **Yes, it's not romance in the sense of kissing and whatever, but that was the best that I could do. I love the pair Reborn/Luce as much as you do, but I'm sorry, I'm just not that kind of writer.  
><strong>note5: <strong>Review. Please.


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